No such thing as an average MDS volunteer

MINOT, N.D.—They’ve come from different parts of the United States and Canada to muck out flooded houses, gut ruined interiors, hammer nails to button up or restore devastated buildings in Minot, N.D.  They’re dressed like laborers, ready for a hard day’s work. But this is no ordinary set of people gathered for breakfast in a Minot church fellowship hall; each individual has a unique life story and reason for being in Minot on this particular mid-October day. Meet an eclectic group of Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) volunteers:

Sterling Beachy, reserved, soft-spoken, raises wheat, soy and canola in Mylo, N.D. During the winter months, he usually goes south. This year, however, he’s sticking around to help with Minot’s flood recovery. The disaster “is right here a hundred miles from my home, so why should I not help my neighbors?” he asks nonchalantly. He will forego the warm weather this year to help out where he is needed. MDS directors have a knack for matching a volunteer’s skills to the tasks to be done, Beachy says. They have him framing up walls for Bible Fellowship Church, a Mennonite Brethren congregation.

Robert Unrau, of Boise, Idaho, first volunteered for MDS as a 14-year-old, after a tornado wiped out Udall, Kan., in 1955. He accompanied his father and other church members to help clean up, and he’s been an MDS supporter since. Long ago Unrau decided to volunteer with MDS as part of his retirement plan. Now 70, he applied for an MDS project director position. The units he was interested in closed earlier this year. But he was game to come to Minot to muck out flooded houses for the month of October. After his first day here, then-project director Paul Unruh had him in a meeting to plan the restoration of Bible Fellowship Church.  Both MDS and Unrau are pleased that Unrau, a retired architect, is now assisting with ideas and the sketching out of drawings and plans for the renovated church.

Steve McBride, of Rapid City, S.D., is on his first MDS mission. His pastor at the nondenominational Nemo (S.D.) Community Church somehow got hold of a letter written by Mennonite Brethren pastor Duane Deckert, in which Deckert described Minot’s flood ravages, including his own church’s devastation.  McBride’s pastor read it aloud on Sunday. Tradesmen were especially needed. McBride had worked after college as a plumber with Eastman-Kodak in Windsor, Colo., and tried to keep up his skills throughout the years, while working as a gerontologist. He now works three days a week as a cognitive therapist with people who have experienced traumatic brain injury. After hearing Deckert’s letter, he thought he’d use his spare four days in Minot. He faced an immediate challenge: even Minot city water officials couldn’t find the church’s shut-off valve. “I have to go to Plan C,” McBride says, wielding a wrench to twist a valve onto a pipe.

Will Rose looks like an astronaut after donning a Tyvek suit to sanitize a Minot home. He may wield a broom and sudsy water on a weekday but come Sunday his tool is the Bible; he pastors Evangelical Mennonite Church in Kola, Manitoba. Why has Rose been making the two-hour drive south? Minot’s flooding is just one manifestation of weather events affecting the Souris River system, which encompasses southern Manitoba. Saturated soil in the Kola area is preventing farmers from planting their crops, he explains. Further, Kola residents feel a kinship with Minot; it’s where they often come to shop or for a weekend getaway. Rose says, “Seeing devastation to places we’re familiar with is difficult.”

Leonard Koop, a member of Rose’s congregation, is a successful entrepreneur in Brandon, Manitoba. He’s in Minot today with dried grout under his fingernails; yesterday he was adding a building to his own business, Prairie Sky Cabins, now rented mostly by oil workers. Like other southern Manitobans, Koop feels an attachment to Minot. “Brandon is about the same size as Minot but Minot has so much more in the way of amenities,” says Koop. He also volunteered with an MDS group from his church in post-Katrina Louisiana. “We are a blessed people to be able to take time from busy schedules to help people in need,” he says, quickly amending that statement with, “We don’t have the time, but we take the time.”